{"id":2546,"date":"2007-11-16T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T17:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/guv-puts-forth-his-best-debate-performance-yet\/"},"modified":"2007-11-16T11:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T17:38:00","slug":"guv-puts-forth-his-best-debate-performance-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/11\/guv-puts-forth-his-best-debate-performance-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv puts forth his best debate performance yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Maybe it was because he\u2019s more comfortable in the West. Maybe it was the fact that it was his birthday. Maybe he\u2019s finally finding his stride. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Whatever the case, Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> performance at Thursday\u2019s Democratic presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas<\/st1:city>, Nev.<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> was impressive. That\u2019s not to say he won \u2013 there were several strong performances \u2013 but Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> was assertive, calm and confident, and he spoke clearly and convincingly on a number of issues. He also used wit to vary the tone of his answers and keep people paying attention to him, and he was granted more time to speak than he has received in previous debates.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The half-truths Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> has told throughout the campaign were still there. For example, he continued to twist the words<\/a> of the three frontrunners by saying they plan to leave troops in Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> until 2013.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But others also told half-truths, and all three frontrunners \u2013 Hillary Clinton<\/a>, Barack Obama<\/a> and John Edwards<\/a> \u2013 waffled on the question of whether states should allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver\u2019s licenses. Richardson<\/st1:city>, meanwhile, gave a definite answer and backed it up by pointing out that New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> began granting licenses to undocumented immigrants in 2003. And, after Obama had been highly critical of the president, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> took the opportunity to take a shot at Obama and the other Democratic presidential candidates, who are all members of Congress.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and I did it,\u201d he said, referring to the state\u2019s driver\u2019s license program. \u201cYou know why, because the Congress \u2013 I noticed Barack mentioned the president \u2013 but the Congress also failed miserably to reform immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In previous debates, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> sometimes sat back and watched others break into the discussion. Other times, he tried to jump in, but looked overanxious and often gave answers that didn\u2019t quite make sense. This time, he jumped into several exchanges without looking overanxious, and he gave clear answers.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> inserted himself during the first few minutes, while the others were engaged in the nastiest attacking of any Democratic candidate debate thus far, and his words appeared to help diffuse the situation, which quickly calmed down.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that John wants to start a class war. It seems that Barack wants to start a generational war. It seems that Sen. Clinton, with all due respect on her plan on Iraq<\/st1:country-region>, doesn\u2019t want to end the war,\u201d Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said. \u201cAll I want to do is give peace a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Setting himself apart<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He even got a shot in at Dennis Kucinich<\/a>, in an off-the-cuff way that was unusual for a candidate who has become known in these debates for canned answers. Kucinich said several times during the forum the he was the only one on the stage to vote against certain issues \u2013 including the Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> war and the Patriot Act \u2013 and he was, technically, correct. But his words implied that every other candidate was on the other side and ignored the fact that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> didn\u2019t vote at all because he\u2019s not a member of Congress.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

When the moderator, during a question to Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, identified the governor as the only one on stage who opposes some sort of border fence, Kucinich protested that he was wrong.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kucinich also opposes a border fence, but he didn\u2019t get to say that because Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> cut him off and told Kucinich to quit lumping him in with the senators who voted for the war and other issues. He pointed out that he\u2019s a governor, not a member of Congress, and took another shot at the other candidates in pointing out that Congress has an 11-percent approval rating \u2013 one that\u2019s lower than the approval ratings for the vice president and HMOs, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> claimed.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then he turned back to his experience as a governor to answer the question on immigration.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the only one that\u2019s dealt with the immigration issue directly,\u201d Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

His new assertiveness was apparent in the fact that he spoke more than he has in previous debates. According to Chris Dodd\u2019s<\/a> campaign, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> got significantly more time than Edwards \u2013 14 minutes and six seconds for the governor to Edwards\u2019 10 minutes and 43 seconds. Clinton<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> spoke for 15 minutes and 55 seconds, and Obama spoke for 18 minutes and nine seconds.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

And on the New York Times\u2019 live blog<\/a> of the debate, there was a decent amount of praise for Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. One blogger even said Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> won the debate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The point: This was easily Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s best debate performance of the campaign. It couldn\u2019t have come at a better time. There are 49 days until the Iowa Caucus on Jan. 3 and, as I reported on Thursday<\/a>, Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> is gaining in polls there for the first time in months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe it was because he\u2019s more comfortable in the West. Maybe it was the fact that it was his birthday. Maybe he\u2019s finally finding his stride. Whatever the case, Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s performance at Thursday\u2019s Democratic presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas, Nev. was impressive. That\u2019s not to say he won \u2013 there were several […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}